About NRICH: Meet the Team

Liz Woodham

Primary Coordinator

Liz graduated with a degree in Natural Sciences at Cambridge and then enjoyed eight months living on an island in Lake Malawi attempting to teach English, Music and PE to local children. Following a PGCE, Liz was a primary school teacher in north London before joining the NRICH team. Her role as Primary Coordinator involves working as part of a team to develop primary-level materials for the
website and to run associated teacher professional development. Liz is a member of the joint MA ATM primary expert group.

Charlie Gilderdale

Secondary Coordinator

Charlie has taught mathematics in three local secondary schools, including a stint as a Head of Department. During the last 20 years he has been working at the University of Cambridge, initially in the Faculty of Education training new secondary mathematics teachers and more recently as a member of the Millennium Mathematics Project contributing to the NRICH website and working in schools
with students and teachers. His recent work has focussed on problem solving and on creating opportunities for learning mathematics through exploration and discussion. Charlie has co-ordinated the STIMULUS peer assisted learning project and has acted as a consultant to the HeyMath! project since its inception.

Mike Pearson

Head of Technical Dept

Mike graduated from Cambridge with a maths degree, and then decided to be a teacher. He taught maths in Netherhall School, Cambridge. However, he was led astray from this noble calling by the exciting prospect of developing microprocessor controllers for washing machines and train sets. Further relapses followed, until in 1983, Mike found himself with the unlikely job title of European
Marketing Program Manager for Board and Networking Products for Texas Instruments. Ever onwards and upwards, Mike programmed his way, via a project to paint Volvo 340s (thirteen layers of paint and they still go rusty!) to... to... a very pleasant career as a sculptor, shepherd, and dad. And although once again he wandered from the good life, lured by the riches to be gained in analysing the
impact of the internet on Deutsche Telekom and BT networks, Mike is now safely building web sites.

Jennie PennantPrimary Professional Development Lead

Jennie has particular responsibility for the Professional Development element of the NRICH Primary work. She is passionate about empowering school professional learning communities to release their creativity, drive and vision to enable children to become successful learners of mathematics. Alongside her NRICH role Jennie is an independent mathematics leadership coach and consultant, having
been the Professional Development Manager at BEAM for a number of years. She is a trained leadership coach and enjoys working with Heads, Senior Leaders and Maths Subject Leaders on realising their vision for mathematics in their school. She has wide experience in writing, teaching and advising on mathematics both in the UK and abroad and has taught in both primary and seondary schools.

Jennie's research focus is on what constitutes effective CPD for teachers and she has a particular interest in the impact of specialist coaching. Jennie is a member of the ACME committtee, the PD lead on the National Association of Mathematics Advisors Executive Committee and a member of the Joint Mathematics Council Primary PD committee.

Bernard Bagnall

Primary Teacher Associate

Bernard has been teaching in Primary Schools since the early sixties and became the Mathematics Advisory teacher in Suffolk in the eighties. Since leaving full time teaching he has worked part time in Teacher Training and has run many courses for able pupils. He has a passion for investigational mathematics and started Bernard's Bag on the NRICH site. Bernard is now an author for NRICH,
helping Liz to develop the primary material.

Alison Kiddle

Secondary Teacher Associate

Alison graduated with a degree in maths from Cambridge and became a teacher to share her view that maths can be useful, beautiful and a great deal of fun. After a five year period in schools in Peterborough and Hertfordshire, converting young people to her views about maths, Alison joined the NRICH team in January 2009. Her main focus is developing Stage 4 material, and she works with
Charlie and Steve to create strong links between Stage 3/4 and Stage 4/5.

Frances Watson
Hands On Roadshow Schools Liaison Officer
Frances joined the NRICH team in September 2013 and has been out and about with the Hands-On Roadshow far and wide already. She has a background in teaching maths to pupils in middle, primary, secondary, upper and lower schools, has loved being an AST for the last 7 years and is very excited that her new role will enable her to continue to work with such a variety of ages and that her first
booking this year was South Korea!

Owen Smith
Unix Systems Admin
Owen joined the NRICH team in June 2002. He primarily deals with the technical development of the NRICH website and administration of our servers. Prior to NRICH Owen worked for a Cambridge software development and hosting company. Owen's early career found him working as a sound engineer and building kit cars.

The NRICH Project aims to enrich the mathematical experiences of all learners. To support this aim, members of the
NRICH team work in a wide range of capacities, including providing professional development for teachers wishing to
embed rich mathematical tasks into everyday classroom practice. More information on many of our other activities
can be found here.